Measuring Campus Climate through a Web-based Survey and Probing into Some Facets of Perceived Campus Climate.

In 2001, the U.S. District Court for Middle Tennessee approved a consent decree to end the federal oversight of the Tennessee higher education integration plan. The consent decree required an examination of the work climates of higher education campuses, and a Web-based survey was developed to measure campus climate in Tennessee. Participation was voluntary, but all faculty and administrators were urged to complete the survey. The final dataset contained 2,784 cases. This analysis is restricted to questions about the dimensions of campus climate, including dimensions by racial and ethnic subgroup, and the focus of this paper is the steps taken to establish the reliability and validity of the survey, the Tennessee Higher Education Campus Climate Survey. Contemporary issues in Web-based survey design and administration are discussed. Factor analytic results show that perception differentials among subsamples can be detected more systematically through factor analysis. The study is considered a work-in-progress since many other analyses could be conducted, such as the derivation of goodness-of-fit statistics for factor structure among subsamples. The survey instrument is attached. (Contains 8 tables and 26 references.) (SLD) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. 1 PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY